DAC

Black Dong, I agree whole heartedly that it’s a good idea to start with definitions. But when the definitions you propose set up a nice straw man for you to kick around, they don’t take us very far. When you define religion as depending entirely on blind faith, you are committing the logical fallacy of assuming your conclusion. I want to prove that elephants are grey. Definition: Elephants are large, grey mammals. Therefore I have proven my point. Logical fallacy = irrational, not rational. That’s what you’ve done I’m arguing that religion does not rely wholly on faith. So you present a definition which contradicts me and suits your purposes. That’s a failure of logic, a failure of reason. Furthermore, you have not read carefully my previous comments. I have not once presented the failure of scientific explanations as a proof of God. What I have done is to say that my belief does have an explanation for those points in which secular science falls short, which then contradicts the claim that secularism is more rational. As to your authoritative claim that proofs of God depend on subjective experiences or what have been called “God of the gaps” claims, I’d suggest you look at my responses to the Terrible Sweal in the alternate thread “Hey DAC”. You may choose to reject them, but the evidences presented there are fully objective, though given very much in brief. You have referred several times to possible theoretical extensions of our present science which might offer an explanation of something before the big bang. I think you need to give some thought to scientific method. You start with observation of a set of data. Then you develop a theory to explain the data you have observed. (It may be completely new or just a variation on an earlier theory.) Then you predict with that theory some result, and set up an experiment to test your prediction. If the experimental results conform to the theory, you use it as a base for going on. The theory is not proven, but is a working model. Newton’s theories were proven to be not completely accurate after 250 years of use. The scientific method depends on testing and disproof. A theory which cannot be tested may fit fine with other theories, but it is not science. Extrapolating back to the big bang has its problems, but at least we can test at some levels by looking at the results. Going past it, we have to accept on blind faith whatever theory of the day may be presented. It may fit completely with what we know about our present universe. But we have no way of knowing that it has any reality before that. The best that can be said for it is that it is not irrational, with respect to the evidence that is considered. But from my point of view, a theory which tries to avoid belief in God wilfully does not look at some of the evidence. That is irrational.

I’m afraid you are just what your name says, terrible. Actually, the point we were discussing was your claim that secularism is more rational than religion, and my response that secularism has to make a blind faith claim at the same fundamental points that it complains of religion doing this. Further, my argument has been that secularism’s blind faith claim goes against the normal views of the “rational” science to which it holds, where religion’s claim fits with its normal views. Look at the earlier thread if you have forgotten this. I’ll stick my neck out and hope the site administrator doesn’t scream at departure from the general theme of politics. Bear in mind, the authority for this is the authority for my beliefs, the Bible. While you may not like it, it is the base for my religious views. I am giving a very summary statement, a doctrinal structure, which in this form cannot be easily demonstrated by single texts. If you want the whole pattern, with support, I can probably send you a study on the topic which you can check against the Bible. The Bible tells us that God assigns guilt to us for sin on the basis of a covenant made with the first man, Adam. Adam was a federal representative for all his people. The word “federal” comes from the Latin “foedus” which means covenant. As Canadians, with a federal government, we are in good state to understand what that means. Adam represented us in much the same way the PM or perhaps better, the Governor General represents us. The PM or GG is our federal head or representative. When a law is signed by the GG, it is binding on all of us. He or she officially acts for the whole country. If a treaty is signed, such as the much debated NAFTA, we all share the benefits or costs. It’s our treaty, whether or not we like it. God appointed Adam as the federal head of all mankind, and made a covenant (read contract or treaty) with him, requiring perfect obedience on condition of death, and offering unending life if that obedience was given. Though we tend to look at it from the side of disobedience and complain, it was a gracious gift to us, offering us life to which we had no claim for obedience which we owed our maker anyway. God also appointed his Son as a surety or guarantor for Adam. The Son agreed that if Adam failed, he would stand in Adam’s place to give the perfect obedience which Adam & his descendants owed, and to pay the penalty of the covenant on their behalf. Adam failed. Fast forward through human history as God gradually set out in writing and taught his people more and more of his plan and the way of life we should live. At the proper time, God the Son took on our human flesh, to fulfil his commitment on our behalf. As true man he gave the obedience we owe, for us (being God as well, he was not indebted on his own behalf). As true man he died for us. Because he is also God, his death was of such weight that he could in one blow pay completely for all the sins of all who would follow him. Illustration of that last point. Jack owes a $10 debt at 5% interest ($.50 per year). He only has pennies to work with & can only pay one coin a year - so the debt can never be paid. Joe would like to help, but he has the same limits. Jesus, however, can pay with a $20 gold coin, in one payment. Now note. You may not like the arrangement. But it is clear, consistent, and explains exactly how Jesus can pay for our sins. He can pay because he is our covenant representative in the covenant under which those sins are condemned. I hope you will withdraw the prevarication insult. Not true. What I did was introduce a theme, showing where I was going. Then I set down step by step the evidence. If you actually read what I wrote, you would have seen that my conclusion was that given evidence that Jesus is God, his statements then become absolute authorities on which we can rest. Where is there an appeal to the mob in anything I wrote? Or even to the authority of the book, without first showing that there were grounds for granting its authority? I presented evidence that what we have now is for all practical purposes the same as the original new testament and the old testament as it was held in Jesus’ time (which Jesus accepted). You choose to bypass that with a scream of mistaken complaint against something I didn’t do. I presented evidence that it is as reliable as any history book - more than most. I then looked at the history of Jesus it gives, and showed that it leaves you three choices. Perhaps you wish to claim that Jesus was insane or a wicked deceiver. Have fun supporting that! The only real choice is that he is God, as he claimed. Given that conclusion, we can go a lot further. That is a blind faith assumption if I ever heard one. There is no rational reason to assume that an all powerful God could not arrange things so that the people he chose to write his word accomplished exactly what he wanted. That’s what the Bible says he did. Your definition of rational debate is rather strange. I present arguments and use some logic. You just cry out, “irrational”, and say I’m wrong. Oh, you do say that I’m appealing to authority, where, if you had read what I wrote you would see that I am not, or at least not to the authorities you think I am. I have appealed to the authority of evidence and people who have studied that evidence. Bottom line. Secularists cannot explain the existence of anything without taking a blind step of faith beyond their science. Secularists have no explanation of the existence of order Secularists cannot explain the existence of life. Christians have a consistent and sufficient explanation of all of these things and more. Included in that more, Christians have a reasonable explanation of the corruption in government with which we all struggle, and of the differences in our views of how we should govern ourselves (just to return to the broad topic).

No. I'm upset that Christians are required to fund a public school system that actively opposes Christian beliefs, that Christian parents who are concerned about that are forced to pay double to have their children educated in an acceptable environment. As it happens, I don't believe neutrality in the school system is possible. So I favour the system they have in Holland, in which every school is equally supported financially by the government according to a formula based on the number of students taking part and the number of families registering their support. Your school can be a Jewish French immersion school for converts to Zoroastrianism, or whatever. Though not yet totally so, our present school system is broadly anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim. I object to that. I'll have to go through the rest of your reply to me another time.

I don’t think I’m misunderstanding you, Black Dog. Please keep in mind the real issue. It is not whether or not there was a primordial atom and a big bang. The issue of this thread is the claim that secularism is more rational than religion. The testing issue at stake is whether or not science goes on blind faith about origins. The science we know says that the universe we know had to have a beginning. It also says that mass/energy does not come from nothing. So, by the science we know, there must have been something before the primordial atom, but something that was not bound by the laws we know. We’ve never observed it. We can’t observe it. But there must be a source. Christians and those of other religions believe that source is God. Secularists believe that source is something purely natural, no god. Secularists have no evidence at all to support their view. It is blind faith in something contrary to all that we know through our science. The religious view offers an explanation which is not contradicted by our known science. That’s more rational than an explanation that is contradicted by the science which it takes as its base. Now you have argued that some theory is being developed which suggests a mechanism. So what? Scientific method involves testing, and this is untestable. That means acceptance of the theory is still blind faith. The best you can hope for is blind faith in something which is not necessarily contradicted by our science.

Of course. This time they weren't splitting their vote.

Dragon wrote: Do you then follow through to see that children should also not be forced to study materials that promote homosexuality? Where are you living? There is no place in Canada in which there is a separate, public funded educational system for all Christians. In Manitoba and Ontario, and perhaps New Brunswick, there is a publicly funded Roman Catholic school system, but nothing for protestants. Protestants are required to pay taxes to support a public school system that in most places actively attacks their beliefs. If they want to protect their children from such attacks they have to pay again to set up their own schools. Do you call that tolerance?

The Bible is the source book for the things that form our Christian heritage. The CHP is committed to legislation deals with public issues. They approach that from a biblical Christian viewpoint. Yes, it is legislating certain Christian beliefs, just as the NDP’s promoting unions is legislating NDP beliefs. The point is that the CHP does not try to compel people to become Christians, or to penalize them for not being Christians. The CHP’s objection to in vitro fertilization, as I understand it, is not because “it’s not how God planned it”, but because the present practice involves the fertilization of a considerable number of ova, most of which are then allowed to die. Since we believe that life begins with conception, we oppose that for the same reason we oppose abortion. I, for one, would not have a problem with in vitro fertilization if it did not involve callous disregard for the “unneeded” embryonic people. If, for example, one ovum were fertilized, and an attempt made to implant it, and if that failed, then a second ovum was fertilized ..., I think it would remove most if not all objections to the process. Those aren't Christian principles. They're universal to just about any legal or moral system you could name, *including* secular humanism. They obviously want some kind of change from the way the current corrective system operates (which at least nominally includes each of the elements you mention) so again, what are they proposing? The fact that others accept them too does not deny they are Christian principles. Personally, I don’t think secular humanism holds to them inherently. That is another argument, but I’d be prepared to argue that for secular humanists these are borrowed principles, principles which do not derive from their fundamental beliefs. But leave that. I certainly want major changes to the way the current corrective system operates. While honesty, justice & responsibility are nominally part of our present system, it is only nominal. In fact, it seems to me that there is little doubt that the concept of justice is completely gone in practice. Justice means that if I borrow $500 from you, I pay back the full $500. I can’t pay you a nominal $5 and say that’s enough. Justice means that the penalty for an offence matches the weight of the offence. There may be a few judges today who hold to it, but my reading says it is gone from our system. Do I have to cite examples? They are in our media all the time. While there has lately been a small move to restitution, it’s meagre. But restitution, full restitution, should be the natural response to property crimes. Honesty? Where is honesty when a person can be held not guilty because conclusive evidence of guilt was obtained in some improper way? Responsibility? When all you have to do is prove that you were (voluntarily) drunk, and you’re let off? Yes, Kimmy, that’s compatible with capital punishment. Here you’ve missed the key issue. As people are God’s creation, and so his property, it requires his authority to take away their life. Where do we find his authority? In the Bible. The Bible plainly tells us that those who commit murder, and are conclusively proven to have done so, are to be executed. I believe it is also a matter of fundamental justice. Canada’s laws protect everybody from being fired without just cause. That covers gays, Christians, Muslims, drunks, hard workers ... whatever. The CHP would remove special protection for gays. It would sustain for them the same protections everybody else has. That includes protection for a gay from being fired because of sexual orientation, unless that interfered with his ability to do the particular job acceptably. Example: is it appropriate for a gay man to work as a men’s locker room attendant in a gymnasium? I believe that the CHP would enforce those protections. If it did not, I can assure you there would be upheavals in the camp! Actually, they wish to ban promotion of homosexuality in public schools. You’re dodging the issue. Promotion of Christianity in public schools is already banned, vehemently opposed. As has been pointed out in this thread, even Christian holidays cannot be celebrated as such in many if not most schools. Why should it be acceptable to promote homosexuality, but not Christianity? I enjoy discussing with you, because you take issues seriously, and usually avoid twisting people’s arguments. But at this point you are twisting the CHP’s views.

Oh yes!!! For far too many, democracy means "all right thinking people will vote the way I do, and most others should not even be allowed to voice their views, let alone run candidates". For the politicians, democracy seems to mean government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the benefit of the politicians. Of course for uncle Joe (Stalin) democracy meant "allowing" the people to vote for him, with no opposition allowed. Yes, it gets a lot of abuse.

Black Dog, you have repeatedly spoken as if an authority to challenge my application of the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. Enough. Here are three definitions & applications of the word. I have stripped out of the Britannica article the parts that did not directly further our discussion, but you can easily check them. Please note that each of them, and all others I have checked, apply the principle to speak of the universe “degrade[ing] to an ultimate state of inert uniformity”. In infinite time that process would necessarily have gone to completion. Hence my argument that matter/energy, as we know them, can only have existed for a finite time. They must have a beginning outside the structures we know. entropy Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Copyright 1994-1999 Encyclopædia Britannica

Response continued ... 6. To be specific, the religious method goes at the world with an Answer, the rational method goes at the world with a Question. Sorry, but I have to disagree. “The rational method” so called (you will remember that I deny that secularists have exclusive use of reason, or even as good use of it as serious Christians) does not begin with a blank slate, as you would like to believe. As you use the term, it begins at least with the assumption that there is no God. It usually makes the assumption that everything worth knowing can be found out by measurement, experimentation, observation of repeatable events. You did not start with nothing. Please remember that I did not just ask a blank question. The question I asked pointed to particular problem points. To affirm that your secularist approach is more rational without answering those problems is just a blind faith statement. 7. Well, it's difficult to address this point, because of course I have no specific idea what you mean by 'your Christianty'. If you have read what I wrote leading up to that statement, you should know enough about my Christianity to answer that question. It wasn’t a vague generality. It specifically addressed the existence of matter, the existence of life and the development of order from “random” events. In all three cases, our normal science and study runs against the secularist assumption that there is no god. If someone came to a science conference and proclaimed, “I just watched a lump of sterile dirt produce bacteria”, the response would be “Get lost. Everybody knows life comes from life. You could not have maintained sterile conditions.” But rather than admit to God, the secular scientist says that somewhere back when that’s what happened. Blind faith. That is NOT rational. From a Christian viewpoint, you can argue the details, but the origin of matter makes sense, the origin of life makes sense and the existence of order makes sense. A God of all power arranged it all. Please keep in mind what I am saying. I am not at this point presenting evidence for my God’s existence. I am simply saying that my “theory” is more consistent and therefore more rational than yours. Of course I need to go a lot farther. But I have not seen much point in doing that while you keep on making dogmatic statements about my views and the Bible’s teaching without even knowing them. You tell me the central story of my religion lacks explicative content, and so I fill the gaps with Belief. But four sentences earlier you affirmed that you have no specific idea what I mean about my Christianity. I think that is just a little irrational! If you don’t know my beliefs, how can you assert so boldly that they lack “explicative content”? I suspect the administrator of this site would tell us that a detailed lesson in Christian theology, as such, is not appropriate, unless it applies specifically to politics as well, but if I’m wrong, I’ll be glad to lay out the logical structure and to try to answer any questions you raise about it. If I’m right, I’d also be glad to do the same with you directly, rather than on this site. 8. The fundamental evidence is Jesus Christ. But we have to start with the Bible. The Bible is the most studied, most criticized, best attested ancient writing we have. Start with its attestation. We have literally thousands of manuscripts and scraps of manuscripts of the Bible, with old testament portions dating back to before the time of Christ, and new testament portions going back to the life time of those who knew the apostles. Some think some of them were even earlier than that. There is no other ancient writing (other than those scraps appearing on carved stone) which exists in more than a handful of copies dated hundreds or even thousands of years after its purported origin. There are many variations in those copies, but almost all of them are meaningless. They are things such as a phrase being repeated twice, or a synonym being set down for a word, or a misspelling. One of most extreme critics of the Bible, a century ago, admitted that there was not 1 word in a thousand in the new testament which was in doubt, and less in the old testament. He also admitted that the most extreme differences were not enough to change any Christian belief. There is no reasonable doubt that the Bible text we hold today is for all practical purposes that which existed in the time of Christ or was produced in the time of the apostles. If you want to pursue this, I’ll be glad to give you references to books dealing with this issue. Christians have been known through the centuries as people of the Book. Believing that God has given us this book, we’ve studied it with care. Opponents have also studied it, and sought to discredit it. In the last several centuries, especially, many archaeologists have sought to discredit the accuracy of the Bible. One of the great middle eastern archaeologists of the last century was Sir William Ramsey. He went out to the middle east as a young man with the intent of proving the Bible was inaccurate. As he compared the Bible to his archaeological discoveries, he was forced to change his mind. He became a Christian. He claimed, for one example, that Luke proved to be so careful a historian that he gave the proper technical name for the Roman ruler in each place mentioned in the book of Acts. Ramsey was not alone in this. There have been hundreds of alleged discrepancies between the Bible and archaeological claims over the years. I’ll mention one example because it happened to come into my own special area of study. In the late 1900s a book was written declaring that the Bible history was imaginary, because it spoke about a widely known people called the Hittites. Archaeology could find nothing of the Hittites. At the time the book was published, the first dig discovering Hittite remnants was being made. Today, Hittite treaty forms are a central element in understanding the old testament covenants (which by the way are a critical part of the answer to your question about how Christ’s death could atone for sin). There have been hundreds of alleged discrepancies, and one by one they have toppled. There are new ones all the time. I recently read one archaeologist who claimed that King David never existed. But they fail and fail and fail ... after a time, with further investigation. What does all this prove? It demonstrates that the Bible is as reliable a historical source as we can hope to have at least for the time of Christ and some time before. Having seen this, we look to what it says about Jesus Christ. It makes one remarkable claim, which is critical to a rational understanding. The clear biblical record is that Jesus told the people of his day that he was God. He said it several times in different ways. The Jewish people understood it clearly, and responded by trying to kill him for blasphemy. That claim shapes the way a person can look at Jesus. Most people today outside the Christian church either deny Jesus existed or think he was a wonderful teacher or prophet (the Muslims hold the latter). The claim that he did not exist is not credible. The claim that he was only a wonderful teacher or prophet is also not credible, given that he claimed to be God. The Muslims of course believe that the Bible was corrupted - and ignore the manuscript evidence that they are wrong. But a great teacher or prophet does not claim to be God. The person who does this is either insane, or evil (seeking to lead people astray at the most critical point), or speaking the truth. I doubt that anybody can honestly read the gospels and say that Jesus was evil or insane. That leaves the option that he was telling the truth. He gave us a test. He said the final and ultimate test would be that he would die, crucified, and rise from the dead the third day. And he did. Of course this is much disputed too. If you want to dispute it, I can do no better than suggest you read a small book, Who moved the stone, by Frank Morison. The first chapter, entitled the book that couldn’t be written, or something like that, tells how as a keen young lawyer he decided to write a definitive study of the world’s most famous trial, and in so doing prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead. He prepared, and by the time he came to write had concluded that no reasonable being could look at the evidence and deny that Jesus rose from the dead. I agree. The resurrection of Christ testifies that his claim to be God was true. That takes us into a different territory. Now we look at the Bible as it is described by Jesus, and he says it is not just good history, but it is God’s book. He tells us that everything it says is true (that’s not everything people may try to read out of it). Please note that this is a summary statement of the evidence. It draws it together in brief. If you want to challenge it, then we would have to go through all the manuscript studies, or all the archaeological studies, or all the things said in the Bible about Jesus, depending what parts you want to challenge. The point I want you to see, aside from the broad argument, is that I am going on evidence when I put my trust in Jesus Christ. It is not blind faith, but reasonable faith, faith in someone who has given me abundant reason to believe in him. 9 Which IS very convenient. Yes it is, because otherwise I would go up the wall trying to figure out why people can so blindly believe something someone who knows nothing about the Bible has told them, while refusing to listen to answers to those false statements. I’ve had people tell me confidently the Bible can’t be believed because of what it says about Lilith – who appears nowhere in the Bible. They question everything that may be said in the Bible and in favour of the Bible, but accept any stupid criticism as attested fact.

Sounds like we're engaged in two different arguments. I was arguing that secularism has no claim to be more reasonable than religion, not that absence of a scientific proof of something demonstrates God's existence.

1. Indeed, it was people who were Christian who did this, but you can hardly claim it was because of Chrisitanity that they did so. Usually it was opposed to Christianity's organized face that any progress was achieved. Why can I hardly claim that is was because of Christianity? Let me paint a picture in broad strokes. Eastern religion tends to say the material world is an illusion, not something to be studied. General polytheistic paganism has no base for assuming the world is orderly. Many gods lead to conflict, contradiction, a measure of chaos, even if one happens to be stronger than the rest. Christianity, Islam to a lesser degree (Islam can be seen as a Judeo-Christian heresy; undeniably it shares some of the same roots) and Judaism affirm that this world is a meaningful place, not part of the divine. It was that valuing of this world, without making it divine & so too holy to study, which moved Christians to science. Furthermore, biblical teaching led them to embrace logic. The Bible declares that God does not contradict himself; which establishes the basic principle of logic. Nor is it true that scientific advance was usually opposed by the organized church. No question that it sometimes was, by some parts of the church, but not normally. 2. Response: It's obvious that people who profess Christianity (and other faiths) can and do reason. However, the do not reason (by my definition), through, by, or about religion. Religion requires specifically the suspension of disbelief in a dogma structure. I.e. the suspension of reasoning. To the extent that one exercises true reason in relation to the dogma structure of one's religion, one is failing to be religious. If I am bound by your definition, there is no argument. But I reject your definition. Roman Catholic doctrine requires “implicit faith”, acceptance of the dogma without question. My church confesses that the call for such implicit faith is sin. “the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 20:2. That may mean that my your definition, my Christianity is not religion, but I reject implicit faith in your views, too! People in my tradition do not reject reason. In fact we believe that rejection of God is actually an irrational rejection of truth that is visible. The Bible tells us that those who fail to see in the creation sufficient evidence of his eternal power and Godhead “suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18-22). I do not deny that there are Christians who throw out reason and think they are doing well. Far too many take that route. But in my opinion they are being unfaithful to some of the teaching of the Bible. Your point 4 depends on the same faulty limitation of religion to irrationality. 3. I’m not sure I understand your distinction of secularism from atheistic science. Generally secularism is seen as rejection of any religious explanations, including such things as origins. That’s why I highlighted some problems in them, pointing out that secularism is not free from blind faith. However, if your use of the word is different, perhaps you could explain it more for me. 5. I question that. What is the evidence that the primordial atom originated in some “secular” way? The common views of the development of the universe extrapolate back to such an “atom”. There is some data which appears to be direct evidence of the first seconds of the big bang. But what evidence tells you that there is a naturalistic explanation of the origins of this atom? What is the evidence that life formed by accident? And developed by accident? There is evidence that it formed. There is evidence (though there are a lot of problems with that evidence) that it developed. But where is the evidence that this happened in a naturalistic way (i.e. without a designer)? Those are the questions I asked. I have no inherent problem with the big bang. I have no grave problem with the idea of life as we know it forming in a developmental process. But my reason bucks hard at the idea that these things happened naturalistically, accidentally. Believing that is worse than buying a lottery ticket and believing I’ll win. At least there is some meaningful chance of winning the lottery, though I’m far too good a mathematician to waste my money seeking it. I’ll stop with that, and comment on your last points another time. If I don’t crawl into bed I won’t get my work done tomorrow, and there’s a lot waiting for me.

I'm glad you opened this thread, because I had missed that reply of yours in the other thread. My excuse, Last week was terribly busy, and I've been trying to catch up on all the threads I'm interested in - & I just missed. it. I can't take the time right now to respond well, but I will as soon as I can.

Your statement of the second law is correct, but your application misses the boat, Black Dog. The Second Law denies the possibility of a decrease in entropy, that is an increase in available energy, in a closed system. If nothing happens there is no change. If energy is expended, entropy increases, and available energy decreases. If the universe had already existed for an infinite time, this process would necessarily have moved to completion, and available energy would be gone. That's easy to say, but where is your evidence? Wrong again. That was not my original point but the question which rose from it. My point specified three things in which the secular view goes on blind faith, even against its normal principles, where the religious view is consistent with its principles and derives from them. Until you can show scientific evidence for those points, the claim to be more rational is wishful thinking.

What? How do you leap to that last sentence from the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Am I missing something, or are you? In this case, you’re missing something. If the universe had existed forever, all available energy would be gone. Life depends on available energy. In simple terms, if you think of energy derived from water going down (through turbines at Niagara falls, for example), the water tends to run down until it is all at the same level. Once that happens, you have no more available energy, for anything. Of course we get energy from the sun, which evaporates the water, and so the cycle repeats, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that in all such processes there is an overall loss of available energy. The universe is running down, and unless the spring is rewound from outside, will eventually stop. If it had existed forever, that process would have been completed an infinite time ago. Life as we know it would not be possible. Again, your claim is very confusing. If the universe were older, heavy radioactive elements would have had a longer time to decay (i.e. lose energy exactly as the 2TD law predicts). Ergo, if the universe were older there would be less likelihood of BANG. My tilt. I expressed myself very poorly. What I meant to say was that for the presently available decay products to exist, if we extrapolate backwards, at a point not greatly prior to the present estimates of the age of the universe, it would have to consist entirely of heavy radioactive elements, which would then go BANG. The point is that whether or not you accept the Big Bang theory, there has to be a beginning point, which cannot be explained by science. What we know of science tells us that matter cannot be self-starting and cannot have existed forever. Fancy words don’t cover the fact that it is blind faith. “the most likely based on an understanding of the available information”. Leave aside debates about the details. We see an expanding universe of immense size. We extrapolate backwards to a “point” source of immense mass/energy, the primordial atom. Everything we know says it can’t have been eternal and it can’t have come out of nothing. But we have zero, zip, no evidence of anything before it. So where is your “available information” that says there must have been something besides God before that? We see material life. It has a wide variety. We have a fossil record that can be interpreted to show gradual development (we’ll ignore alternate interpretations to focus on the present issue). Somewhere back when there was apparently no material life. A basic scientific principle is Pasteur’s law, that life does not come from non-life. Where is the “available information” that sometime in the distant past life came from non-life, purely by accident, without the intervention of a designer? For that matter, where is the “available information” that tells us that the steps along the way happened without the hand of a designer? Until you can show evidence, your acceptance of these things is blind faith, however you try to disguise it.

Do I have to?I thought they made the point very well.

To go back to the theme of this thread (hint, hint) I'd suggest it is a combination of things. Harper and the Conservatives are a new track which shows some sign that it might overthrow the long Liberal monarchy. That makes it both somewhat unknown - how will the Alliance side & the PC side come together, and how will Harper influence the whole thing - and important in that it brings a possibility of significant change. Regionalism is pushed to the fore by the fact that the Bloc dominates Quebec, the Liberals dominate the Maritimes, the Conservatives dominate the West, and Ontario is sort of up for grabs, though apparently still leaning to the Liberals. When you add to that Harper’s commitment to decentralization, this is also a big issue for our day.

Good for you, Kimmy. You actually read some of the things you want to criticize. I don’t agree with you, but at least you are not just throwing around labels attached to nothing but prejudice. You are still throwing around labels, though. Let me note that the Liberals say that anybody who disagrees with them is an extremist. Unfortunately, you seem to accept their attacks as being the official base (i.e., if they labelled somebody as extremist, that makes it true). Personally, I think the person who labels others as extremists (or other ugly labels) is a threat to our democracy. Such a person is not interested in the good of the country or in truth, but only in manipulating people and gaining power, it seems to me. Oh, I suppose he or she might be interested in the good of the country as he or she sees it, but how can you trust a person’s judgment if they use invalid arguments and seek to manipulate the electorate? From that Liberal perspective, I confess that the CHP are extreme extremists. You’ve only mentioned issues which make good sound bites today. The CHP’s slant challenges the way we have been going in a lot of ways. However, please note, they are the Christian HERITAGE Party, not the Christian Party. That means they reject the approach of legislating Christianity. When you interpret them “they'd send convicts to Bible-School...” you are misunderstanding their approach to rehabilitating criminals. Bible School might be available (as it is today, in fact), but only on a voluntary basis. But they would apply Christian principles, such as honesty, justice, responsibility, restitution ... However the substance of your attack lies in four areas. You believe that anyone who is not pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, pro-pornography and anti-justice, is an extremist. Or are you just saying that is the view of many Canadians? The CHP is terrible because “They want to criminalize abortion” and “they'd reinstitute capital punishment”. Don’t you find it strange that a man who rapes and murders a series of young women, and videotapes it himself so there can be no doubt of his guilt should be protected, while an unborn child who has done nothing to harm anybody can be killed at her mother’s whim? The CHP proposes to execute “those who commit first-degree, premeditated murder”, and to protect the weak, helpless child. If that’s extremism in our society, we’re in sad state! ...no legal protection for gays, either. That’s not what they said. What they said is no protection that does not apply to everybody else equally. Under a CHP government, someone who attacked a gay and caused his death might well be executed. That’s protection. ...and no saying anything nice about gays in public schools, either. There will be book-burnings, and the books being burned will be "Susie has Two Mommies". Why is this so terrible? It says nothing about burning the books, or even censoring them. It is a plan to exclude them from publicly funded institutions. Today the Bible is excluded from most if not all public schools in our land except in voluntary classes, usually outside normal school hours. In fact in many public schools it is not even acceptable to have a traditional Christmas concert. Why do such limits suddenly become a horror if they apply to other materials that are offensive to far more people? Enough said. I think that throwing around labels like “extremist” is a big problem. But given the reality that this is being done, I’d suggest that the real extremists are those throwing around the labels. They label themselves, for those willing to think about it.

I'd really like to see your evidence for the claim that "Originally, the male god was Baal, and the female god was his consort Ashtoreth". While you're looking for it, let me point out to you that the "Elohist source" idea (the documentary hypothesis about the Pentateuch), has long been discredited. That doesn't mean that people who know the basis for it has been torn to shreds don't continue to apply it. But that's a function of people who insist on believing what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. It's an attitude that is very strong in those who don't want to believe in God.

Did you ever study any physics, Black Dog? There are two fundamental laws which tell us the universe as we know it cannot be eternal. The second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, was considered the best supported physical law we know, when I studied. It says that the universe is running down. Every action, everything that happens, leads to an overall decline in available energy. If the universe as we know it were eternal, we’d be dead. The law of radioactive decay says that the universe can’t be a whole lot older than the largest present theoretical estimates. If it were, it would all be in the form of large radioactive elements, which would then go BANG. Now you can choose on blind faith to assume that before that BANG there was a universe which worked differently, which led to ours, and which derived from something else. But recognize that it is not science; it is blind faith. The best scientists today, indeed all scientists today that I have heard of, will tell you that we can’t project back past the “primordial atom”, and in fact, can only guess about it. It appears that there is no known evidence today for any pre-existent universe. That makes a lot less evidence than there is for God.

My, Black Dog, you do have a good opinion of yourself, don’t you? Making that first statement assumes that you know everything. Otherwise, there might well be evidence that you haven’t heard. Right? I’d be very happy to debate the evidence issue with you, if you are serious and not just a dogmatic objector on the basis of blind faith in modern “science”. Beyond that, you still have not answered my question. I have pointed out three points at which the secularist relies on blind faith. Two of them are taken as exceptions to generally accepted scientific principles. An abusive, opinionated attack, which assumes its conclusion (that there is no God), does not answer that question. In evolutionary circles today, if you disagree with evolution, you are considered to be of no repute. It’s kind of like the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages and the inquisition. It makes life much easier to write off the “heretics” than to consider what they are saying. There are many well-known scientists who challenge the chance, random-mutation evolutionary approach. If you are very good at mathematics, read William Dembski’s “No Free Lunch: Why specified complexity cannot be purchased without intelligence”. If you are up on microbiology, follow that with M.J. Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box: the biochemical challenge to evolution”. They make a very careful mathematical and biochemical case that the development of life as we know it requires a designer. When you’ve read them, you might be in position to argue against them meaningfully. For what it’s worth, many Christians believe that what Darwin called evolution was a God-directed development. Their objection is not to development, but to the idea that it all comes by accident. I’m afraid the outmoded superstition of our day is blind belief that chaos led to order. Bottom line. You have said not one word to establish that the secular system is rational.

Question for all you people worrying about the Christian Heritage Party's "extremism". They have a fairly detailed policy statement covering the whole spectrum of government policy, on their website. How many of you have read it?

My approach to crim begins with a concept of justice. Justice means that law-breakers should be punished in a way proportional to the seriousness of their offence, while the innocent should be guarded. My first suggestion would be adoption of a law that all real evidence, however acquired, is to be considered. The fact that drugs were discovered during a search on a warrant issued to investigate a fraud case would not rule out a drug trafficking charge. DNA evidence gathered improperly would not be barred from use. I am not proposing throwing out normal, natural question marks about evidence. A confession obtained where there was reason to think some form of coercion was applied is suspect - how do you know it is real? But I think we need to put an end to people being acquitted when there is ample evidence to convict them, but the evidence was not gathered in the appropriate ways. If someone deliberately obtained that evidence illicitly, the remedy is to punish the evidence gatherer, not to acquit a criminal. In the same line, when someone is charged with a crime, the police should always be free to gather physical evidence to identify that person, such as fingerprints and DNA. If the person charged is convicted, that identifying evidence should be retained as a means to identify participation in other crimes. Second, we should set up our court system in such a way that normally those charged are brought to trial quickly, and any appeal process is similarly quick. If someone knows that in the worst case a sentence will not be applied for fifteen years, it’s not likely to be much of a deterrent. If he knows that in the best case for him, his sentence will be a applied within a year, that will be taken more seriously. Third, we need to bring an end to light sentences for serious and violent crimes. At the same time, we should find a way to move away from imprisonment for property crimes. In fact restitution should be the norm, at three or four times the amount stolen or destroyed, to account for the times the offender may have gotten away from it. We want to make sure that crime does not pay.

Many years ago I read the analysis of a well known mathematician of the odds of the accidental formation of a single protein molecule, with the assumption that an earth sized mass of the right elements was shaken at high frequency, for an extended period of time. This was back when my studies in physics were fresh in my mind. There is a large number, which physicists took then as the largest number that has any meaningful reference to the physical universe - I don't remember its name. In any case the result this mathematician came up with was something on the order of 1/(that number) squared. It was something like 1 chance in 10 to the power 40. I'm sorry to be so vague. This was 30 or more years ago, and I didn't save it then. The point in any case, is that your probability suggestion is so far too big as to be ludicrous. Aside from that, the evolution issue is the only place in which "scientists" would talk about such low probability occurences being meaningful. Scientists don't study miracles. They study repeatable acts, in which cause and effect can be discerned. They resort to the secular miracle explanation (low probability events) only when they are clinging in blind faith to heart beliefs which go beyond their science.

CHP ran 62 candidates, I'm pretty sure. I had an email somewhere commenting on results, which indicated that the best result was between 5 & 6% of the local vote. Unless they have changed their policy without my noticing, the CHP is opposed to asking churches to support them. They do not believe that churches should take a direct stance in politics except on the most serious issues. The church's role is to teach their members God's truth and encourage them to live it, and in specifically moral issues, to call the nation to account, not to endorse a political party. Combine that with the fact half the churches and half of those who call themselves Christian in this land would have no sympathy with the CHP's views, and that fact that recent ideas of "separation of church and state" play very well in many of the churches that would sympathize with the CHP views, and it's an uphill battle all the way. But the CHP ios not really interested in being elected by the Christians alone. Its goal is to convince nonChristians as well as Christians that they are trustworthy, and that they would give the best government of any party. To that end they have a full-orbed party policy available on their web site.